A PROVEN FACT: CLOTHES SHRINK IN THE CLOSET (2024)

I'd popped one last square of crumb cake into my mouth the other morning when my co-worker delivered some sobering news.

``I can't go to lunch today,' she whispered. ``I'm going to the gym.'``That's fine,' I said carefully, trying not to spray her with powdered sugar, ``but why are we whispering?'

``Because,' she said, pinching the skin above her waist, then mouthing the words: ``I'm getting FAT.'

Now, ``fat' is an inexact term, and it always makes me suspicious. Had she gained actual pounds? Gone up a dress size? Tripped the warning bell in the freight elevator?

No, it was just as I suspected. She'd done what we all do in October - reached to the far end of her closet where last fall's wardrobe is hanging, and discovered it was too tight.

Next, she'd done precisely what the diet-fitness-apparel industrial cartel depends on all of us doing: She went on a diet, started working out, and bought a new wardrobe.

I know. I used to go through the same autumn ritual - well, the new wardrobe part, anyway - until I found out what the diet-fitness-apparel cartel doesn't want us to know.

And that is, the reason last year's clothes don't fit isn't that our bodies got bigger. It's that the clothes got smaller - they contracted in size right there in the closet.

``It's a proven scientific fact,' a department store sales lady confided to me this week, checking first to make sure that her supervisors weren't listening.

``It's the temperature and humidity changes, because closets aren't climate-controlled. Hot, cold, damp, dry - why, you can see how the fabric would lose its elasticity. The weave tightens - wool, cotton, even Spandex. Anything with a waistline.'

A customer behind me looked from the saleswoman to the pantsuit she was buying, then back again.

``I KNEW it,' she cried, as the saleswoman ducked into the dressing room. ``I just KNEW it.'

Bridal gowns and old Army uniforms stored in hot attics or damp basem*nts - everyone knows that spontaneous shrinkage has been going on since the beginning of time. Since the first cave man sated himself with blackened yak and fell asleep too close to the fire. Only to discover in the morning that his fur loincloth was a little snug around the middle.

Still, I wanted more than a hunch. I wanted science on my side. I called Maureen Grasso, a UNCG design professor who studies textile performance.

``The phenomenon you're describing is very much a function of gravity and age,' Grasso said. ``But not of the garment. Of our bodies. As we grow older, gravity pulls downward and we change shape.'

Searching the annals of textile history, Grasso conceded there had once been a recorded case of rayon curtains that appeared to shrink in length during particularly dry weather. Other than that, shrinkage was due to human error, for instance, leaving your jeans in the dryer too long.

``You lie on the bed and zip them up,' she instructed, ``then sort of slowly bend over at the waist.'

But as for clothes spontaneously shrinking, I found dwindling support for my theory. In fact, Grasso's colleague Dianne Vass argues that clothes are in reality getting bigger.

``It's called vanity sizing,' said Vass, a design professor. ``Maybe you used to be able to wear a 10, but you're changing in shape and size. So the designers change with you.'

Gone, Vass observes, are the days when the fitting room limit was three items per trip: Now, it's all you can carry, because who knows what size fits? Even mail-order companies send customers several sizes, and have them send back the ones that don't fit.

OK, then, designers are all over the map. How does that explain the fate of last fall's wardrobe - and the bridal dress that fit like a glove 10 years ago?

``Maybe it wasn't as comfortable as you recall,' Vass suggested. ``It could be you've had one or two children since then. Or - or - perhaps when you got married you didn't work out, and you do now. Maybe you're in better shape than you were before.'

So as I was saying, there's only one explanation. Clothes shrink in the closet. It's a proven fact.

Reach Lorraine Ahearn at 373-7334.